It appears that most people even those who use porn agrees that it can be unsavoury and AG even said quaote that if his wife would allow him to take photos he would digard the porn, so then isnt it all just excuses guys.....
No matter how you justify it, you are doing something which on some level at least you believe is 'less than ideal'....
Like Ive said before - it takes a stronmg man to put his integrity above his willy..

In relation to another comment made by Ag about sexual harrassment being commited by men who desire more orgasms. Well I must disagree,m sexual harassment is commited by men with VERY limited respect for women. porn only feeds this.

After completing my thesis on this topic I came to understand that one of the greatest misconceptions we have about rape is that it is provoked by sexual desire. Despite the fact it involves acts of sex , rape is actually an act of hate, not sex...
Sexual harrassment likewise is a milder form of hatred.

When people justify porn by saying it gratifies sexual desires thus decreasing rape they fail to acknowledge this. In triuth porn promotes disrepesct of women. (in the least)

Hi LetMeJustSay.

I know your heart is in the right place but I do feel that you are bull-dozing with comments like "guys are just giving excuses". We have explained numerous times why it is not as hurtful as you think yet you reject all those reasons and say we are just throwing out disengenous things for excuses to view porn. That is not the case with me. I have thought much about it. I will add a few things on morality since I haven't covered that yet.

1. Porn in a vacume is perfectly OK in my opinion. Guys are not wired to be manogomous. Yet, family and feelings and all of that demand manogomy. Shoot... I would be hurt if my wife really wanted to sleep with someone else. So I must treat her by the same rules I want to be treated by which is to not actively want to have sex with anyone besides her. But porn can be a way of having just that little tiny outlet for the instinct to have sex with multiple females in a safe and "non-threatening" way in terms of cheating.

2. If girls in porn were just special effects computer graphics, I would not have an issue with the morality of it. But since they are real people, getting paid to have sex... that is unethical and me viewing porn is somehow condoning that. That IS a moral things which I tried not to think about because I did know it was wrong to condone the "sale" of a girl's body at my expense.

3. I think that porn can be used in bad ways. Guys who can't get hard without it or that develop some kind of emotional enfatuation or connection with it have some serious problems and are kind of gross and creepy if you ask me.

4. Finally, I think that women are wired in a way that porn threatens them. So this becomes unfair that we demand they change the way that they are wired. That'd be like them trying to tell us that having a sex drive was wrong. So if your wife really resents and is hurt by porn, it's best to just give it up.

That is my honest to God feelings on porn. I really don't think that viewing porn in itself is wrong but that the hurt it causes others is big enough that overall, it's not a good thing for a married guy to engage in (unless the wife is 110% cool with it).

Hi Wasp, I really sorry if my stating the fact that men have many excuses for viewing porn makes you feel bulldozed...

You and I differ on some very important points.
1 - Unlike you I dont belive porn is OK

2. - I dont believe guys are hardwired not to be monogamous any more than women. (I believe it is a totally moral choice for both sexes.. ****** I too would have sex with many men if it didnt hurt my husband but because it would I choose not to).

I think many men like to kid themselkves that women dont crave variety just as much as them or enjoy the eyecandy but we CHOOSE not to behave in this way out of respect for both our partners and ourselves.

So where you contend that men and women are wired so totally differently I would challenge this and say that this is only ONE view on the social construction of gender.Our socialisation plays a huge role in how we behave and these behaviours are totally within our control. To allow 'bad behaviours that hurt others is to basically behave like an animal. putting basic desires (not needs, because they are no more needs for men than for women.) above morality and integrity.
These are my honest views on porn and no doubt they will offend all who look to justify this character weakness in themselves and I am sorry for them but I must speak my truth just as you speak yours. For too long women have sat back and accepted this bulldozing by men and society in general.
I do not ask any man to change....all I would hope for is that each one of us , men and women alike would strive to do the most honorble thing and seek to really know ourselves. (without justifications and excuses).
Of course each one of us lives as we see fit but there it must be acknowledged that as a man you can never really be aware of how women feel about their husbands using porn. To assume we are all wired to hate it is so false......
each individual man and women is unique and has their own reasons for loving or hating it.

You may say, well I cant understand why you like porn and you are right but simply because you enjoy using it, does that mean that women may not make a judgemnet on you fgor this choice?

After reading another more recent post on men and porn I quite frankly was disgusted by the excuses....

My sex life with my wife is not as frequent as I would like

It means something different to men than women

Or the best ever

Men are just more visual than women.


sorry if calling a spade a spade offends anyone...but truth is they are nothing more than sorry excuses for choices that are made purely for the mans orgasm, despite the fact that many women (and yes women he doesnt even know) are being hurt by this indutry....

How can people be so callous as to nopt care about the big picture of how this impacts???

I m sorry...I know I still just dont get it.....How any man can justify an activity that hurts so many women and so many marriages just for his orgasm....and you know what....I never will...

To me this is supreme selfishness and anything short of an apology is simply an EXCUSE

Yes it really is that black and white

To those who may believe porn is fine and may choose to flame me for daring to challenge the staus quo I say....
you are LYING to YOURSELF IF YOU THINK ANY "REASON" makes your choice to hurt so many (whether you directly see their hurt or not) makes your choices the right ones..

Ugh, here we go again....

Look, letmejustsay, it is not porn that creates problems in some marriages, but the fact that H uses porn instead of devoting time and energy to his W. Porn is NOT the problem. If a H drinks instead of devoting time to his W, then drinking is a problem. If H goes fishing and hunting with his buddies instead of devoting time to his W, then it is a problem.

If porn, or drinking, or fishing, or whatever is the reason why H does not fulfill his W's EN, then it needs to be eliminated, mitigated, or somehow dealt with.
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In an ideal world I'd do nothing all day but sit around, read, eat, travel, and have sex 2x a day. But I live in a real world. With schedules. And work. And meetings to go to. I really wish that W and I had SF 5x a week, but I know that for many reasons it simply is not realistic. Thus, whether I like it or not, I have SF with W as schedule allows, and use porn other times. Though sex is important to us, we are simply not willing to sacrifice so much of our other facets of our life so I could get off with her 5x a week.
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Look, I know what you are trying to imply. "Yes, AG, you just have a strong sex drive, and if you don't have as much SF to satisfy your sexual needs, then you should just hold it in. Be a big boy." Do you simply wish guys to be sexually unfulfilled because of your aversion to porn?
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You are confusing your terms. Rape is not an act of hate. Rape is an act of violence. A guy may hate his boss, or the other sports team, or particular food, or his neighbor. Does he deal with his hate by raping them? No.

If a rapist rapes a woman he has never seen before, is it because he hates her? Why would he hate a stranger so much that he would rape her?

If most rapes are committed by men against women, are you suggesting that men do not hate other men, or that women do not hate anyone?

Look, I understand that rape is a form of violence, and that you cannot say it is based on sexual desire, because sexual desire and love are good, but rape is bad, and thus sexual desire and rape cannot coexist in your academic model of this vile act. But to think that a guy rapes a woman because he hates her, and his sex drive has nothing to do with it, simply ignores reality.

LMJS,
I TEND to agree with you. I agree that Sexual morality really is a choice. I also understand that women choose to be monogomous. But I wonder if the male instinct to not be monogomous might not be higher. If you aknowledge that there are major differences between male and female in general, why are you soo convinced that our drives and interests would be perfectly matched?

I reserve the possibility that I'm lying to myself but what I can tell you is that conserns that you or my wife have about porn... they are unfounded and based in fear. My wife and I have viewed porn together and she would say things like "do you like that girl's boobs?" And I'd be like "hm. They are alright". "Do you think they are too big?" she'd say. I was having a hard time answering the questions because my mind wasn't really going like that. I just get and overall picture of if I like what I see or not. I don't break it down and analyse that way. Then she says "because I have a similar body type; I'm wondering if my body type is your #1 pick of body types". And I'm thinking to myself "Oh my God. Way to complicate and ruin this fun with such serious thinking. I love my wife's body; why can't it be as simple as that and stop digging and trying to second guess me?". As you can see, the porn made insecurities come up in her mind. But her insecurities had zero to do with my real thoughts. Porn wasn't an excuse to look at something better than my wife. It was just porn... something edgy and different.

To get off the topic of porn, how do you think it is best to handle situations of insecurity in a marriage? Let's say you going to the mall by yourself makes your husband insecure that you will meet another man. Do you not go to the mall? Or do you tell your husband to get ahold of himself? So far in my relationship, we've leaned towards "not going to the mall" (that's figurative and not literal) or a compromise where maybe we'd "go to the mall together". That is working for us now. But I can forsee times when one person is simply being too insecure or irrational about their fears. Porn aside, what is your view on that?

Hi AG and Wasp, thanks for your replies and may I just say I pleasantly greeted by the respected responses you both gave..
AG , whilst rape is an act of violence it is also an act of hate...I made not confusion of terms. Men who rape women usually do so because of deep seated hatered and anger towards women. Sure they may not know the women they rape but it is a way of asserting power against women in general.

It is true that it is not caused by his sex drive but rather from deep seated psychological urges.
Through your way of seeing it (that rape is a result of sex drive - you basically position all men as potential rapist) I dont believe that. I feel rapist are deeply disturbed people who seek to abuse women and use rape and sexual violence as a weapon.

In terms of the quote about 'being a big boy'. they are not my words....
But no I dont expect you to not use porn because of my feelings about it, I would hope you would not use porn because you recognise the hurtful effect it is having on many women and marriages and would make a conscious choice not to support such and industry.

Also You say that porn per say is not to blame it is that it takes away from the relationship just like fishing etc. This is wrong because the attention it takes away from the relationship is only PART of the problems porn can create. My situation is a classic example with porn creating a dissatisfaction with the w. Of course your w is only one person not a never ending supply of 'perfect body parts' It sets many men up for dissillusionment and although you say you are not one of these men I would chanllege you as to what body parts you have consitioned yourself to aesthetically admnire. Do you find the 20yr old body typically found in porn more desirable or the 40yr old bodyt that has born children. of course I ask that you put emotions aside and decide puely on looks. If you were single and your w body was next to the porn body which would you choose??? if you knew neither. belive it or not you were not born to desre the porn style body.(You might even say men were designed to prefer this but a quick look through history shows us how our desires and perceptions of the perfect body change) You have been conidtioned (like the rest of society) and whilst I acknowldege that media in all forms (womens mags, tv etc) are all responsible for this, porn is an extreme form which included the 'so called perfect idea of even the most intimate parts of a woman. You may see no harm in prefering the porn body (if you didnt know your wife and say 'I have so many levels of attraction to my wife that are deeper' but why take away from considering your partners body the most perfect by viewing porn. What I guess Im saying is that by not viewing porn your wife takes up the whole of you visual stimulation. As my husband described it, before there was porn and me, seperate. Now the porn is gone there is more room for me . I have become his sole seual focus and as a result his feelings for me have grown. (my feelings sadly are a whole different ball game, please read my personal message to you below).
If you believe your w body more 'perfect' then I trust you sek out women in porn whos bodies, age and looks are similar to hers Right???? Just my thought......

Wasp, Hi I see that you seem to at least understand a little bit of where Im coming from as it seems you have heard many similar things from your wife.
Perhaps you might consider that simply because we see things differently perhaps we have some valid points. I

I know what your saying about insecurity in marriage , it is a difficult situation and interestingly it turns out my husbands porn use was largely a result of his insecurity. Porn allowed it unlimited access to women without the possibility of rejection (not that it happens too often lol). Had I been more insecure I may have stayed silent about his porn use and allowed myself to feel this way...

So wheras many men mistakienly feel that women who dont like porn are insecure I actually think many of us are intellegent secure confident women who simply see it for what it is.
Sure I wouldnt stop going to the mall if he didnt like it. The mall hurts nobody. I could nevcer compare him to the mall, never give away a special part of myself meant for him to go to the mall.

Wasp, it sounds like your in a similar place that I was.....when I listened to othere who said 'oh its no big deal', 'all men do it' men and women see it diffrently' etc. I watched it with my h for a while in the hopes I would 'get over it'. Believe me, this was the worst mistake ever, because all that happened is a I began to resent my husband so much.
When I looked at this stuff I felt pity for the 'actors' I felt contempt for those who consume it (and disgust with myself for being part of that group).
These were my 'political' views

There was also of course the personal side ' Yes it did make me feel my husband compared me ( and his ridiculous comments didnt help)
Yes, I did feel less attractive and special to him...
Basically it was almost the nail in our marriage.

I know what your saying though my husband also says he dint think those thoughts (about comparisons etc) but I think the main thing I can say is that all women (and probably men too) need to feel special to their husbands.....

I have never met a wife yet who says ' Wow, my husband watching porn makes me feel so special'.
Wasp, I really feel for you, it soo hard but my honest advice, is please repsect the fact that your wife is not being irrational, she has a valid reason to be hurt....
She is sharing with you her most precious gift, her heart, body and soul and you gave the same to her. When you choose to share this with some 20yr old bimbo you have never met....(on paper of not) dont be suprised that she is hurt....

So the truth, and I say this not to hurt you, is that your wife is speaking her heart, she is opening up and making herself vulnerable by sharing these feelings and this takes guts and confidence, so why assume she is insecure.
But if she is insecure in other ways then I think couseling is really important. It is not reasonable to expect normal activities that hurt noone to casue insecurity.
This is where AG and I really disagree. whilst he believe porn is one of these 'everyday activities trhat causes no harm ' I really disagree. So I guess your situaltion requires you to look inside and decide whether you agree that it is harmless (and not just to yourself) or harmful...
When you maker this judgement for yourself the most important thing will be to put desires aside and look at it purely rationally.

Best of luck, I really hope things work out for you both

One of the most interesting things I have noticed its the readiness of some men to label women as irrational in the way they feel about porn....

If it is true what some say about men being naturally pulled towards porn then surely these same men must recognise that women are in a far better place to rationally analyse the impact of porn and would therefore be able to better see the truth about its impact. ????

If men are so interested in porn then perhaps these urges color the way they see it and make them unable to rationally look at the big picture????

Just a thought.

That is very sad. So what exactly are these things that are so important that y'all put them ahead of meeting each others emotional needs?


AG, if the only reason your using porn is because y'all refuse to make time for each other then I would tend to think that the better solution for a more fulfilling marriage would be to rectify the time y'all are together.

***edit***

Hi LMJS, I feel exactly the same way you stated above. Did you get advice that you can share?

Most of the people defending the use of porn are men. As a woman, I don't see the problem of it. If you have a good marriage, the only problem it can cause is if you are so against it that he feels he has to hide it from you. This is different than going to strip clubs because those are real women, that he could have real contact with. This is just my opinion, but I really think that you are turning this into a problem in your marraige. He knows how you feel and if he stops because HE WANTS TO, great, but if he stops because you tell him to, it is with resentment, and will eventually lead to him doing it again, just trying harder to hide it. I just think that there are lots of other things to worry about in marraige, and this shouldn't be made into more of an issue than it is. But then anyone who's read my posts, knows how screwed up my personal life is so maybe you should take my opinion with a grain of salt...

Some women are okay with it, true. Actually, most of my female friends are okay with it. It IS a problem if it makes you feel replaced, though. My H and I weren't having sex very often at all, he was rejecting my advances. I started snooping because I felt as if something was going on. He wouldn't open up, so I went looking. I was actually looking for drugs, or a phone #, that is how bad things between us were. To this day, I still don't know what his problem was, and he claims that he doesn't either. As one person put it in another post, porn isn't nessaccarily the problem, but may be a red flag of a deeper problem.

I'm just posting out here some old posts on this same subject (from this same board).

Takola: "Here is a good point I'd like to make. Let's say your W liked to masturbate to nude pictures of your best male friends. Heck, let's say she masturbates to videos of your best male friends masturbating. Let's say she does it a few times a month. You complain, and she just changes so that she does it behind your back and doesn't tell you...would this be satisfactory to you?"

Dean: "OH MY GOD! YOU ARE ON THE BORDERLINE OF BEING DISGUSTING. YOU ARE MAKING ME WONDER IF YOU ARE AS INTELLIGENT AS I THOUGHT YOU WAS IN THE PAST POSTS."

Takola: "Dean, I have a point here. Yes, this is disgusting. The point here is that you draw a differentiation between knowing the subject of the pornographic matter and not knowing them. Some people, and you seem to be one, don't know the person in the porn or their name. It isn't really a person, it is seen as a pornographic work. Others don't really see a differentiation between knowing and not knowing the subject in the pornography. There is a person there (in the cases we've discussed before a woman, so I will use that) - a real live breathing woman with a name, a face, livelihood, and a family. People who know her and love her. This is a person. To them, it is not a work of pornography - you are masturbating to pictures and scenes of a live person who is not them. They see it as sharing your sexuality with this person, when it should be reserved for them.

It is not all about the people in porn looking more attractive and making people insecure. It isn't all about moral or religious objections to porn. It is about a different perspective, one that (I am guessing based upon your posts) you do not share.

You say that my scenario is disgusting, and I agree with you. What I am saying is that some people see the use of pornography in the same light in which you see my scenario."

Just something to think about...I'm going back to lurking. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

I appreciate your faith in my view points, but I am not sure that I can offer anything more insightful then has been provided to you here, or in your parallel post Married me because he could get better!!!!! (Sorry I could not get to this earlier)

First of all, you have my condolences. I cannot believe that a guy would EVER say to his W anything like what your H to you. His comments, as others have noted, is so incredibly insensitive and inappropriate, it just boggles ones mind why he would say such a thing. A H should be worshipping the ground that his W is standing on, and not pushing her face into it.

As wasp89 mentioned, do not let him get away with this vitiating treatment of you. Perhaps anger, exasperation, logic, crying on your part would be an appropriate responsive and preventive method of mitigating his inappropriate behavior. I don’t know what works on him.

It is perplexing by an adult would do such a thing. Surely he must know that one should not say such things to one's spouse! Perhaps he is immature, perhaps he misunderstands the RH concept, perhaps it is a cry for help ("you devote much time to our 4 kids, and not enough to me! I am jealous."). I don't know.

But to your present query. Your self-esteem seems to be tied to his approval of your looks. Obviously, the first prong of attack is the eradication of his hurtful comments. The second prong is to taking care of your outward appearance (I am not in any way implying that you are not doing it already; indeed, you may be already overcompensating already). I see this as essential not because it would necessarily change your looks to meet his approval, but to (a) make yourself feel better about yourself, (b) not to leave any doubt in your mind that he may just be right, and if you only tried things might be different, and (c) to demonstrate to yourself and to him that you are taking care of yourself and that you care about yourself.

But the most important prong from my view is to understand that his physical attraction to you is not dictated solely by the volumetric dimensions or perkiness of ones breasts or by the presence or absence of stretch marks. It is dictated mostly by the attitude about one's body, and confidence about self. If you feel sexy, and act sexy, then you will be sexy; your looks are secondary. To paraphrase wasp, to guys, women's good looks are dictated only about 40% by their photogenic qualities and 60% is her attitude. Be confident and happy, and he WILL find you irresistible. On the other hand, a woman who has a body of a 20 yr old porn star, and has a poor attitude, is full of insecurity, will simply be very unappealing to all guys.

I don't know if I helped or not.

Thank Ag , I agree with what you say,
It totally perplexes me because I was so very confident about myself prior to these comments and his change s of attitude. But I think one of thew things you noted jumped out at me...he is immature.
I am slowly gaining my confidence back...I think h is starting to feel a little bit of heat as a younger and (I proabbaly shouldnt say this but better looking man) has started taking a bit of an interest in me...Not that I would ever act on it but its funny because my friend reckons men can sniff out when a married womans is not being appreciated. I think he's feeling more than a little nervous about the whole thing at the momen. And wrong or right Im not doing a lot to reassure him at this point in time.
Anyway , thanks again for you kind advice, hopefully my h will come to his senses. I think one of the reasons I became so upset by our last discussion is that my wounds here cut deeper , it seemed to upset me to hear a man say he used porn but didnt consider his wife to be less attractive than these women, because I knew my husband did. - Although I dodnt think I will ever agree that porn is not degrading I can at least see that it effects relationships in different ways. Unfortunately for me it effected my marriage badly, no doubt largely because of my h immaturity......Thanks again, it is graet that even though we have different view we can come together on such a forum to help one anoter, best wishes, bella

Ps I wanted to add that it was only through reading the insightful sensitive comments to other post of people who were in trouble I was able to put aside differences and realsie that each one of us offeres our own unique wisdom. Thanks again

I have had the same problems as you. I have got my husband looking at porn on the internet. I have also caught him masturbating to magazines in the garage. What I don't know doesn't hurt me, but what I do know does. He said that most men look at porn and it is normal. He accuses me of being jeolous of the women in the mags. I am certainly not jeolous of them. I am an attractive 26 year old women. But, I just don't think men should do the same things that they did when they were single. I would suggest you stand your ground. That is what I did. I am sure my husband still looks at porn, but if I catch him again I will continue to stand my ground. He says that he should be able to do what he wants in his own home, but isn't this my home too. I don't think we will ever agree on the issue. I try to ignore it, but it sometimes creeps intor my head. When I am away, I sometimes wonder if he is looking at it. I am sure you may have the same type of feelings. And it just isn't fair. Is porn really that important.

It's unfortunate that a lot of men believe that porn does not affect the relationship. My husband has a warped view of sex because of it. I hate porn period and my husband knows it. It's a boundary in my relationship. My husband's use has decreased, however, he still views it on ocassion. I am not happy with it and I let him know. I have now found that it does no good for me to beat him over the head with it.